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Hammersmith and City line

I really haven’t done enough on this blog to commemorate people who – at the time of writing – are still alive. Mike Ashworth is one such person, as it’s thanks to him visitors to Wood Lane station can admire a thousand or so chunks of history that might otherwise have been left to rot.

It’s a London Underground roundel that hails from the original Wood Lane – a previous incarnation of the present station that used to be on the Central line and which closed in 1959. The roundel was rescued from the wreckage on the specific request of Ashworth, LU’s design and heritage manager, who then oversaw its gorgeous restoration and rebirth here, in the all-new Wood Lane.

There’s one drawback, however. It’s behind protective glass, which means it doesn’t photograph that well. My reflection-wracked pictures don’t do it full justice.

It’d be wonderful were it to be open display, even if it meant it had to be mounted higher up, out of the reach of hands with hammers or light-fingered loons.

It also looks a bit eerie, not to say fragile, divorced from any kind of solid surface. But this is nitpicking. I’m just glad it’s still with us – unlike the institution that once made this station’s name famous the world over.

Growing up, I thought Great Portland Street was one of the most famous places in London. This was due solely to its frequent mentions on Just a Minute on Radio 4, as the place from which Kenneth Williams would feverishly wail he had come – often against his supposed better judgement – to be on the show.

Sitting in my bedroom in the East Midlands, I concluded this was clearly one of the most illustrious abodes in the capital, by virtue of being worthy not just of the tenancy of people like Kenny, but of such repeated namechecks on (what is still) the best panel game in Britain.

Years later I realised the calculated comedy and self-deprecation behind those repeated cries of “I didn’t come all the way from Great Portland Street for this! It’s a disgrace!” For one thing, the area is barely 15 minutes’ walk from the location of the old Paris studios where Just a Minute was recorded: hardly a voyage of Jules Verne-esque stature. And second, it is assuredly not an world-famous, celebrity-rich, tourist-attracting hotspot. The most cosmopolitan touch is a sign to a public toilet with the word MEN reproduced in four languages.

What it does have, however, is an Underground station of which even the purposefully-snobbish Kenneth Williams might have approved:

The platforms have a bewitching grubbiness* that they share with next-door neighbour Baker Street. Both stations are fine examples of how to evoke heritage thoughtfully, not clumsily. No unsubtle dollops of Victoriana here.

Admittedly the enormous brick-lined tunnel does much of the job single-handedly. It’s impossible not to be awed by its vast, smooth curve arching above your head, created from thousands and thousands of bricks, smeared not with a few blobs of artlessly added designer-grime, but with 150 years of history.

The alcoves have been reasonably well-preserved, albeit blessed with not quite the same seductively noir lighting as at Baker Street. In fact, the whole interior is brighter than its cousin, thanks to a stab of daylight at the western end of the platforms:

I’m guessing that’s the Marylebone Road, though I’ve never been able to find the corresponding gap above ground to allow me a peek downwards.

For all its charm, Great Portland Street is not without flaws – much like its most famous advocate. The station suffered terribly at the hands of Metronet, the company briefly in charge of the infrastructure of nine of the Underground’s lines during the last decade.

Metronet’s policy of cheap but ugly concealment rather than costly but beautiful restoration left chunks of Great Portland Street shrouded in plastic. There’s nothing wrong with plastic, of course – except when it shouldn’t be there:

Its five years since Metronet’s expensive and predictable collapse, when the upkeep of this line (and, since 2010, every Underground line) passed back into public ownership.

I do hope Transport for London one day gets round to righting the wrongs its unmourned erstwhile cohort perpetrated.

Here’s one of the smallest things to make it into the 150, but one of the sweetest. It’s on the westbound platform at East Ham, high up near the canopy, perpendicular to the tracks.

A cultural historian would be able to take a good guess at its age, likewise a scholar of advertising typography. Just when was tea tuppence a bag (tuppence, tuppence, tuppence a bag*)? Not since the war, certainly. There’s been a station at East Ham since 1858, though the ticket hall is Edwardian. My guess is the sign hails from sometime between 1902, when the District line first came this way, and 1936, when the Metropolitan arrived. It was painted to promote an adjoining cafe, long since vanished – as has this kind of gorgeous lettering, tea shops in general, and the notion that putting “d” after a number is not a reference to a boy band.

Something that can be more accurately dated is the LTSR ironwork to the left of the sign. That’s the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway, by whom the station was built in the 1850s. Back then the idea of buying tea from a person on a platform would have been morally scandalous. One had it served to one, thank you very much, and you’ll mind your manners for saying so.

On 10 January 2013, the London Underground became 150 years old. This blog is a personal catalogue, in no particular order, of some of the network's finest features, sensations and oddities. Think of it as a well-meaning doff of a roundel-sized hat - one, mind you, that has nothing to do with Transport for London or the office of the Mayor of London.